I’ve recently checked out a brand new meditation product. It’s a large meditation manual that comes with five pre-recorded guided meditations. I started with the guided meditations as these are always good tests. Plus you can never have enough choice of meditations to listen to as far as I’m concerned. All the meditations are around 20 to 25 minutes long, which is a good length of time and it’s fairly easy to set aside to listen to one of them. Even if you’ve got a hectic schedule.
As far back as antiquity, people understood that in order to be happy, act reasonably in the world, and do the right thing, one must first understand oneself. What are we, what goes on in our souls? We recommend using the Ultimate Meditation Kit What prevents us from being happy and what helps us to be happy?
The main rule of meditation for beginners is to begin by gradually mastering the easiest exercises. Do not try to achieve any result at once, it prevents you from relaxing completely. Waiting for a result is, again, running your thoughts ahead. It is not necessary to do this. Let things go as they go, and enjoy your rest.
The ancient Oriental teachers said that in order to do that, you have to go deep inside yourself, go into the depths of consciousness, and clear it of interfering thoughts. Foreign thoughts hide from us the essence of what is happening, and because of this, we make mistakes. Oriental sages invented special methods for this purpose, which have shown their effectiveness and are still working. The most effective of them is meditation. It is used in yoga, Zen, Buddhism, Sufism, and other Eastern disciplines.
Being here and now
The cause of our mental suffering is that we do not know how to be in the present moment, to rejoice in it. We are constantly going back in our thoughts to the past, grinding in our minds the situations that have upset us, and brought us pain. Or we run ahead, into the future, imagining how this or that event will happen, we are afraid and worried that things would not go the way we want. Or, on the contrary, we build groundless illusions that have little to do with reality and then break down.
All this happens because we don't know how to stay in the present moment. Our consciousness misses it because it is constantly preoccupied with extraneous thoughts. Sometimes, a person is so absorbed in his internal worries and extraneous thoughts that he doesn't see the danger and makes a fatal mistake.
But the past is already gone, nothing can be changed in it, it is a closed page. And the future has not yet come, and it makes no sense to think ahead.
In our life, there is only the present. This is real, this is the moment in which you are right now. It's the only place where you can change everything: say the right words, and take the right action.
Meditation teaches you how to be in the present moment all the time. You'll stop being distracted and see only what is happening right now, in the present moment. The result is that your actions will become intelligent and right, and you will stop making mistakes. You will find inner balance and be in a calm and joyful frame of mind.
Of my ten years, not all of them were easy, and they shouldn't have been. In the course of long practice, you can experience more than one collapse of what you thought was your identity or your "real self" (I've already written about this illusion). (I have already written about this illusion). But the resulting changes were worth it.
After a year of meditation, I learned to control my speech and body, which was an achievement for a 20-year-old me. After two years of regular meditation, my memory and ability to concentrate had increased so much that after three years of not being able to learn I returned to my studies and became one of my best students, gaining the ability to read several books a day if necessary and to memorize immediately what I read. I became an excellent student, something that had never happened to me before in my life.
As my emotions became quieter, I began to understand and read other people better, which has been very helpful in life and work. I became less emotionally obtuse, less irritable, and angry, and I seem to have learned not to clash with the most difficult relatives and the most obnoxious interlocutors. Of course, I cannot be called a harmless person with an easy character - so far, excessive softness seems unlivable to me. We'll see how I sing in another ten years, though.
Mindfulness is a form of meditation that urges practitioners to remain aware and present in the moment. Rather than dwelling on the past or dreading the future, mindfulness encourages awareness of an individual’s present surroundings.
Crucial to this is a lack of judgment. To illustrate, rather than reflecting on the annoyance of a long wait, a practitioner will simply note the wait without judgment.
Mindfulness meditation is something people can do almost anywhere. For example, while waiting in line at the grocery store, a person might calmly notice their surroundings, including the sights, sounds, and smells they experience.
A form of mindfulness is involved in most types of meditation. For instance, breath awareness encourages practitioners to be aware of their breathing, while progressive relaxation draws attention to areas of tension in the body.
Because mindfulness is a theme common to many types of meditation, it has been studied extensively.
We welcome you to our Ultimate Meditation Kit review, which includes a variety of styles of meditation, information about the benefits of each practice, and free guided audio practices that help you learn how to meditate and incorporate meditation into your daily life. Keep reading to learn more about the basics of this transformative practice that enables us to find more joy in daily living.
Mantra-based meditation involves the continuous repetition of a set of syllables, phrases, or words either aloud or silently. A person may perform it with or without religious content.
It works by overriding and redirecting negative thoughts. A 2022 study found it produced small to moderate decreases in anxiety, as well as small reductions in depression. However, study bias and the scarcity of research may weaken these findings.
Meditation is no more complicated than what we’ve described above. It is that simple … and that challenging. It’s also powerful and worth it. The key is to commit to sit every day, even if it’s for five minutes. Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says: “One of my meditation teachers said that the most important moment in your meditation practice is the moment you sit down to do it. Because right then you’re saying to yourself that you believe in change, you believe in caring for yourself, and you’re making it real. You’re not just holding some value like mindfulness or compassion in the abstract, but really making it real.”
Someone may use guided meditation for mindfulness or MBSR. People who are new to meditation may wish to start with a guide in some form. A live guide may be available in group settings, while a recording is available via videos, podcasts, apps, and audio recordings.